


Conflict of Interest

by 00AwkwardPenguin00



Series: Dragon of the Yuyan [2]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Discussion of child abuse and abandonment, Gen, OC-centric, Ozai (Avatar) Being a Terrible Parent, Ozai (Avatar) is an Asshole, Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:27:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22050091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/00AwkwardPenguin00/pseuds/00AwkwardPenguin00
Summary: Toshiaki, Troop Commander of the Yuyan Archers, has been a soldier for fifteen years. He has served his Fire Lord and his Nation loyally and faithfully. But when Commander Atsuko, CMO of Pouhai Stronghold, brings to light a shocking revelation, it opens the floodgates to questions Toshiaki isn't sure he knows how to answer.Inspired by MuffinLance's #Yuyan Raise Zuko on Tumblr
Relationships: Zuko & OCs, Zuko & The Yuyan Archers
Series: Dragon of the Yuyan [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1582384
Comments: 130
Kudos: 4865
Collections: Finished111





	Conflict of Interest

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MuffinLance](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MuffinLance/gifts).



Toshiaki sits on his bunk, waxing his bowstrings and watching Kai teach Zuko their sign-language. It's been over two weeks since the boy snuck into the Stronghold, and he's still underweight and standoffish, but he trails after the Troop with dogged determination, and he's picking up their language with dizzying speed.

He already has his own name in their language, gifted by Kai, who seems determined to befriend the kid. In turn, Kai seems to be the only one of the Troop that Zuko willingly lets within arms' reach, although he still shies away from casual touch.

Zuko successfully speeds through his latest vocabulary lists, and hesitantly draws Kai into a conversation about food, which seems to be both boys' favorite topic.

_**My favorite dish is mutton-pork fried rice,**_ he signs slowly. _**I also like apples, and mangos.**_

Kai replies, _**Mutton-pork fried rice is delicious! I like spicy noodles with shrimp, and plums.**_

Zuko's single eyebrow furrows as he puzzles out what Kai is saying, and the tiny smile that forms when he figures it out and replies, **_I like plums too!_** is unfairly adorable.

_Easy there, Commander_ , he thinks to himself, coiling the bowstrings up and returning them to their pouch, _he's an asset, not a pygmy puma kitten._

Mika strides up to the boys, a small pouch in her hand. _ **Zuko, would you like some fire-flakes?**_

Zuko eyes her suspiciously, but replies, _**Yes, please.**_

Mika hands him the pouch, and Zuko peeks inside before signing _**Thank you.**_

_**You’re welcome.**_ Mika reaches out to him like she’s going to ruffle his shaggy black hair, but pulls back at Zuko’s flinch. She gives him a soft smile, and heads over to her own bunk.

Kai waves a hand to get Zuko’s attention. _**Can I have some fire-flakes too?**_

Zuko nods and holds the pouch open for Kai to help himself. Kai takes a few, and scoots back with an easy smile when Zuko’s expression turns anxious. The fact that he was able to share the fire-flakes at all feels like a momentous step, since the kid protects his food like a hungry boarcupine.

The door to the dormitory opens, and the Stronghold CMO, Commander Atsuko, steps inside. Zuko immediately notices her entrance, and keeps a wary eye on her as she strides directly over to Toshiaki.

“May I have a private word, Commander Toshiaki?” She asks quietly. Her face and voice give nothing away, but Toshiaki is absolutely certain that this discussion is going to be about their newest recruit.

**_Absolutely, Commander Atsuko,_** Toshiaki replies, rising. _**Shall we go to my office?**_

“That would be best, I believe,” Atsuko says, and they walk to the administrative wing of the Keep.

Toshiaki sits down at his desk. _**What's on your mind, Atsuko?**_

"I think you need to see this," Atsuko replies, retrieving a scroll from the folds of her medic's robes. She spreads it out on the surface of his desk. "Your newest recruit might actually have Royal blood."

It's a professionally done ink drawing on fine paper, about a year old, and depicts the Fire Lord and his Heirs. Fire Lord Ozai stands tall and regal and powerful in the center, his bearing rigid and imperious even as the brush strokes that form his image flow gracefully. At the Fire Lord's right, the place of favor and prominence, stands the Fire Princess Azula. Even at the tender age of eleven, the cold eyes and calculating smirk on the Princess's face is unsettling, a nearly exact copy of those on the face of her father. In contrast, the Fire Prince on his father's left has eyes like warm embers, banked but still radiating kindness like heat, and his little quirked smile is slightly pained but earnest. Toshiaki can easily imagine that smile on a face a little thinner with hunger and half obscured with a horrific burn.

_**You're certain of this?** _He asks.

"I am," she replies. "My uncle is a Royal Scribe, and so has access to the Palace. He's also a… fan… of the Royal Family, and likes to keep abreast of events pertaining to them. Seven months ago, he wrote me a letter."

Toshiaki listens with mounting horror as Atsuko describes how the Fire Prince, only thirteen years old, had been shocked to find his father, his Fire Lord, across the dueling arena. How he had immediately dropped to his knees and begged his father for forgiveness. How the Fire Lord had burned his own child's face.

"My uncle says that the Fire Prince disappeared from the Palace after that," Atsuko says. "The Fire Lord, long may he reign, has made no decrees in regards to the whereabouts of the boy, but has quietly ordered all records and images of him destroyed. Uncle Katsuo hid the items in his personal collection pertaining to the Fire Prince instead of destroying them. I wrote to him two weeks ago asking if he had any recent images of the Royal Family, and he sent me that portrait."

Toshiaki is still trying to wrap his mind around the situation. But first things first…

_**Did you tell anyone else about this?**_ He demands.

"No, and Uncle Katsuo knows to be discreet," Atsuko answers. "He wouldn't last very long as a Royal Scribe if he wasn't."

_**Good, let's keep it that way for now,**_ Toshiaki signs, slumping tiredly. Great Agni above…

"Do you want my recommendation?"

He blinks up at her, surprised. Atsuko is normally the picture of a loyal Fire Nation medical officer--detached and clinical in all things. Her tone now, though…

_**Please.** _

Atsuko takes a breath. "The patient presented with advanced undernourishment, suggesting that he has been subsisting on whatever he could catch or forage. His clothes were Caldera silks, inappropriate for the terrain, and he had no possessions other than a pearl dagger, too fine a make for him to have simply found or stolen it. He has thin burns consistent with the fire lash technique all over his back, all at least a year or more old. The burn on his face saw immediate treatment, thank Agni, but the bandaging was taken off too soon, and it hasn't seen any kind of aftercare to minimize the scarring."

The doctor's fists are balled at her sides, she's snapping each word off as though it had personally offended her.

"Fire Prince Zuko was left for dead, Commander. He was not meant to survive this long, and if Agni hadn't made him the single most tenacious man I've ever seen, he would be dead months ago. It is my recommendation that we ensure that no one else figures out who he is. For his own safety."

Toshiaki can feel the headache brewing like a Yanshima thunderstorm. _**You have given me a lot to think about, Commander,**_ he signs. _**May I keep the portrait?**_

"I was planning on destroying it anyway," she says, shrugging. "Don't want people putting pieces together that ought not to be." She forms the Flame with her hands, he does the same, and they bow to each other. Then she sweeps out of his office without another word.

Toshiaki groans aloud in the privacy of his own office. Great Agni and all the stars, what is he supposed to do? He is a loyal soldier of the Fire Nation, and has been for fifteen years. He has made oaths before Agni to serve and obey his Fire Lord and to serve and protect his Nation.

The will of the Fire Lord is as his own.

The will of the Fire Lord is the death of this boy.

It is obvious that Zuko was never meant to survive. The Fire Lord wanted him gone, but didn't care enough to order his death. If Toshiaki reported the situation to Colonel Shinu, word would eventually get back to the Fire Lord, who would then order the boy's immediate execution. And as a loyal soldier of the Fire Nation, Toshiaki would be bound by oath to carry out that order.

Toshiaki has been a soldier for fifteen years. He is the leader of a specialized unit that infiltrates enemy territory and captures or eliminates targets that the regular Army is not trained or equipped to handle. He and his Troop are a precision tool to be utilized for the progression of the March of Civilization. They pave the way for the Fire Nation to spread its greatness to the rest of the world.

By all accounts Toshiaki shouldn’t even have to think about it—but he can’t stop looking at the portrait in front of him, seeing the tiny, shy smile on Zuko’s face as he signs haltingly with Kai, and thinking, why?

Why would the Fire Lord turn on his own son? Why would the Fire Lord burn and abandon his own child? Toshiaki doesn’t have any children of his own, but he remembers his own father with great fondness, and cannot think of a single thing he could have done at age thirteen that would have caused Shui of Yanshima to treat him as cruelly as Ozai had treated Zuko.

And if the Fire Lord could treat his own family in such a manner, then what was to stop him from doing the same to his loyal troops?

He already has, Toshiaki realizes, remembering a dispatch from the front that had come through a few months ago. It had extolled the honorable sacrifice of the 41st Division against powerful Earth Kingdom forces south of Ba Sing Se. Assistance had been too late to stop the wholesale slaughter of the 41st, but the Fire Nation forces that had attacked the enemy’s rear had avenged them.

Captain Daichi of Jun Company had lost a cousin when the 41st had died. After the dispatch about the battle had been read, he’d confided in Toshiaki that the entire division had been composed of raw recruits. The average age had been 18.

Maneuvers on that scale were planned by the Fire Lord’s Council of War. The Fire Lord himself had to approve them before they were even written down.

The Fire Lord had sent an entire division of teenagers to their deaths.

But he’d done it to his son first.

Toshiaki feels sick. The headache that had been brewing earlier is now roaring in his head like a tigerdillo, sending arrows of pain zinging through his brain. He drops his head in his hands, fingers massaging his temples where it feels like his skull is falling apart.

Falling apart the way his faith is.

Fifteen years. Fifteen years of service to a nation that sends its children to be slaughtered. Fifteen years of service to a line of despots that savages its own people.

It can’t go on.

But what can he do?

The portrait catches his eye again, and he stares at the tiny smile on the prince’s face, rendered in ink. Thinks of the same tiny smile as the prince shares his fire-flakes with his friend.

There is none of his father’s cruelty in Zuko. Toshiaki has not known the boy long, but he knows that. For all of his wariness, he still accompanies the Troop through their drills and practice, smiling timidly in congratulations when the younger members succeed in their tasks, and providing escort to the infirmary when they get hurt (despite how nervous Atsuko obviously makes him). Toshiaki has seen him petting the vermin-catching pygmy pumas that live half-feral in the Stronghold, and the Hawkmaster has admitted to allowing the boy to feed the messenger hawks treats. Fire Prince Zuko may be royalty, but he is also startlingly kind.

Crown Prince Zuko. No decrees have been issued removing the Prince from the line of succession. Princess Azula was titled Crown Princess on the Summer Solstice, implying her position as heir apparent, but the Fire Lord has not yet stated his intentions outright. It is likely that he will wait to do so until Azula is eighteen, legally an adult. At that point, it is only a matter of time until Azula gets tired of waiting for her turn on the throne.

Heirs to the Caldera Throne can be legally challenged. Zuko would be able to challenge his sister for the Throne that is rightfully his.

Assuming he lives that long.

Toshiaki looks at the portrait once more, then rolls it up and feeds it into the small brazier that warms his office.

Well, Toshiaki will just have to make sure he does.

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, this one was hard. 
> 
> In other news, I had a brief chat with my sister @idk-thecatdidit, who is a HUGE ATLA fan, but doesn't really like ATLA fanfic.
> 
> Guys, she said she LOVES this series! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
> 
> All y'all who reviewed and left kudos are awesome, but there's just something really validating about a member of my family enjoying something I made. 
> 
> I still want friends, though! Yell at me on [Tumblr](https://awkwardpenguinproductions.tumblr.com/)!


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